While he was absorbed in the movie, I took my chance to study him. We were pressed together on the couch, my ink-stained hand in his, rough and weather-worn. His lips were quirked on the side, not quite a smile yet not quite a smirk, lips that had scalded mine just moments before. Little tufts of hair stuck out on the back of his head, making me blush from the reminder of my awkward and nervous kiss. It was as soft as I had imagined it would be, curling around my fingers the same shade as the light stubble on his chin. And his eyes…they flickered, back-lit with a fire of life, somehow managing to look softly and seriously at the world in tandem. Pools of caramel brown, ringed with dark lashes so long they tangled together when he blinked. And I smiled, wondering how I had managed to capture this boy’s interest, how I managed to get him here, on my couch, in my home. Wondering why he had chosen me, of all people. Suddenly, those eyes were on me again and I flushed crimson. Eyes crinkling at the corner, he raised a hand and brushed the hair from my face. “I’m sorry, I have a lot of hair,” I whispered, then nearly kicked myself. He unnerved me. His lips spread into a grin, then he them to my forehead and turned to face the television. Smiling, I tucked my head back into the crook between his shoulder and neck, the place I thought I fit perfectly, simultaneously thinking that this moment couldn’t be more perfect. Looking back, I wish I could snapshot that moment, frame it, and leave it there, going neither forward nor backward, but leaving it in the perfection of that moment to safe myself from the hurt to come.